This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

$tudy Hall

Questions on a fine Thursday in November...

Why has the City Council voted for a $100,000 study of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill - which coincidentally is the exact amount left over in a trust fund set up by the operators of the landfill intended to benefit the community? Who is going to do this study? What other items could the $100,000 be better spent on?

How is Mayor Poopy going to keep his promise to close Sunshine Canyon when staff doesn't see how without spending millions?

Even if Poopy pulls the City out of Sunshine at the cost of $15-$16 million a year, how does he prevent the operator from just finding other customers?

9 Comments:

Another study. Great. I'm going to build a library of useless studies that create nothing but rhetoric and grandstanding. Until we have leaders that will actually do something with these studies, we should shelve them all together.

The operators of the landfill cannot get customers from other counties if the JPA between the county and city says it can't. I believe the neighbors of the landfill will be working just as hard as the county to be sure this is incorporated.

That's just what the CLA and CAO want people to think because the CLA has ties to the landfill's lobbyist, Arnie B. Just one quick thing Ron is trying to do before he gets his next position. It goes with their faux "landfill capacity crisis" argument.

If Sunshine Canyon is going to be expanded, they NEED the City of L.A.'s contract.

But businesses in L.A. will surely be getting a better deal as BFI scrambles to get contracts.

Why do we need a study when Councilman Smith and staff went on a City paid trip to Europe a month or two ago to 'study' alternatives to Sunshine Canyon? Who paid for the trip(and from what source), who went and how much did it cost, anyway?We need an audit of this !! Where is Laura Chick when we need her?

I think that trip is clouded in secrecy. I heard Smith paid for he and whoever he took (?) from his office holder account. I heard people from the BOS went, but nobody seems to know who and/or who paid for them to go.

I get the feeling Smith is going to hold the mayor to his promise not to renew the contract with the city and BFI and to implement whatever alternative they've come up with.

There are bigger things to audit about our trash business than that trip though......the whole thing is so hush-hush. You can sense something is wrong no matter how often we hear it's not.

This money is not coming from the general fund.If I am not mistaken the $100,000 is coming from the amenities fund that was a settlement the city had with BFI and it was used for mitigations in the surrounding community.

How do you use mitigation money intended for the community's use in offsetting problems that result from the landfill? The study on alternatives is really a citywide matter and money shouldn't have to come from the community that's impacted by the landfill but should instead come from the general fund.

Yes, it surely would be better to use that money on implementation and the study would benefit more than LA residents. What would happen if we waited for Sanitation to handle a study and/or implementation? The City has been waiting a long time already. Paying for it this way is just like the new push for Neighborhoods to pay for part of a project to get it pushed ahead on the wait list.Maybe this will prove what the community has been stating for many years, that there are better ways to handle trash than to bury itin a pit.

The 4:07 comment is from Kim Thompson; a long-time opponent of the landfill and known around city hall as a "very loose cannon". She has made this charge about Deaton before. Anyone who actually knows Deaton (Kim does not) knows that Deaton is motivated by only one thing: What is good for the City. Kim is motivated by spite.

Smith's use of the $100,000 would have been better spent to fund child care or parks improvement in his District.